When the sun is low in the sky, the color of the light is generally warmer - more yellow, red or orange -- which adds beautiful color to the photograph.

Also, long shadows are produced, revealing dramatic textures in the subject.

So what makes a great photograph?

Center of interest: A good photograph has a strong center of interest, something that draws your eye into the picture. There should only be one center of interest in each photograph.

Dominant foreground with a contributing background: The foreground should lead your eye into the photograph to help you find the center of interest. The background should be simple and not distract from the center of interest.

Visual surprise: Can you introduce disorder into an ordered situation? Can you use a reflection or silhouette to make a more graphically designed photograph? Sometimes you can introduce some color into a monochromatic situation. That would certainly make your center of interest stand out.

Is it possible to use some sort of framing in your photo? Can you use an overhanging tree branch at the top of the frame to eliminate a white sky or to add depth to your picture?

Try selective focus - that means, focus on just a portion of a subject and let everything in the foreground and background go blurry. Ability to do that shows an understanding of depth-of-field (how much is sharp in the photograph) and aperture settings.

Also, using a slow shutter speed and panning with the subject as it moves can create the illusion of motion in a still photograph. Are you using all these tools to make your pictures more creative?

Use the "rule of thirds": Using your imagination, divide your viewfinder into thirds, both vertically and horizontally. Place your center of interest where these lines intersect and you will make a much more dynamic composition.

The photographer must understand his camera and know when to use fast or slow shutter speeds, how to use the lens aperture to increase or decrease depth-of-field (the amount of sharpness) in a given photo, how to properly expose the photograph.

Focus: Focus must be sharp unless you are trying for an impressionistic photo. Exposure must be perfect when taking the photograph. You might be able to do a little bit of salvage work in the darkroom or on the computer after the fact, but if you don't start with a perfect image going in, don't expect to have one going out.

Flash: Learn how to use electronic flash effectively.

Contrast: The photo should have good contrast and color balance. More than 50 percent of the photos entered in our contest had poor color balance. Color balance means white colors must be pure white; no tints or color casts to the overall print should exist.

Even though the world of digital photography and Photoshop has made nearly everyone a darkroom technician, many photographers don't know how to judge the results of their printing techniques. If you take your color slide or negative to a professional color lab, you can expect that you will get perfect results. (Notice I said professional color lab; this does not include discount stores, drugstores, etc.) You will pay more for professional printing, but the results are worth it.

Lastly, is the photo perfect? Or is it just "good enough?" We had so many out of focus pictures entered in the contest it hurt my eyes.

In the animal life category we saw hundreds of portraits of birds. Many were outstanding, with beautiful light, strong composition, simple backgrounds with wonderful color. But they were passive photos. The pictures that stood above the rest were active photos - pictures of behavior, not portraits.

Try to make a photograph of something no one has ever seen before, or take it from an angle most photographers wouldn't think to use. Get on your knees, lie on the ground on your belly, shoot up into a wildflower, climb a tree, stand on a ladder, do whatever it takes to make it an unusual and interesting photo of something everyone has seen before.

Make sure your picture goes beyond the trite and obvious, that it has impact to move the viewer. A good photograph should move, excite, entertain or inform the viewer.

Editing is the most difficult task for many photographers. Often a photographer gets caught up in the emotion of the moment: the light is perfect, the subject is in action, you had to spend four hours in a blind to capture the decisive moment - so you love the photograph even though it is slightly out of focus, the background is busy and there's a scratch on the film from when you dropped the slide on the floor while editing. You still love the photo, but no one else does.

Set high standards for yourself and your work. Bracket your exposures and compositions. Choose only your very best. Use a high-quality computer program like Photoshop CS2 to electronically process your images.

Accept only the very BEST!

Thank you for entering our nature photography contest. We learned a lot and hope you did, too. If you want to get better, take a class in photography. Join a camera club. Get out in the field and take lots of pictures.